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_ Tuesday, December 9, 1980.

The Other Press

page seven

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by PAT BURDETT
Why is our student
society struggling against
the college’s plans to raise
our tuition fees. Why are
the National Union of

Students, the British Col-
umbia Student Federation,
and the Canadian University
Press battling government
over increases in educational
costs. The answer is simple
they will tell you. Increasing
the cost of education puts it
out of reach of lower income
persons. Education then
becomes a priveledge of the
wealthy. What it should be
is a right belonging to
everybody, rich or poor. - It
should be made _ totally
accessable.

Bottom line: tuition should
be as inexpensive as pos-
sible, preferrably free.

I will agree that by all
means education is a right of
every citizen and should be
available tothem. But when
these organizations argue
that fees are the prime
factor in making education
accessable, I must insist that
they are mistaken.

The problem is student
finanacial aid. In an attempt
to put education in reach of
persons who simply can’t
afford it, the federal and the
provincial governments
developed a program to
assist students financially.

Basicly this is how the
program works. The federal
government will guarantee a
student loan up to $1800 per
year. This means that a
student can get a loan from
the bank without any collat-
eral because the feds will
promise to pay it back if the
student skips town. The
government also pays the
interest on the loan while
the student is in school.

This way the student, six
months after he graduates,
has to pay back only what he
borrowed, not that amount
plus a big wad of interest
that has been accumulating
while he was in school. You
take on the responsibility for
the loan and the interest
after this six month period,
but supposedly you are now
educated and can step into a
well paying job and pay back
the loan easily.

On top of this loan, the
government of B.C. will give
you up to $1700 per year in
the form of a grant. This is
a gift, you never have to pay
it back. Together, the loan

and the grant make $3500
available to you to go to
school with.

Of course, the government
doesn’t want rich_ kids
abusing the program which
is designed to help persons
who really can not afford to
go to school. The govern-
ment knows how much it
costs to go to school so it
doesn’t give any money to
the well off kids who already
have enough money to go to
school. The the kids that are
a little bit rich it gives only a
little bit of money,
enough so that they can go
to school. And of course the
poor are given all the money
they need to go to school.

What a wonderful idea,
education for everyone!

Indeed, the idea is a good
one. Unfortunatly the appli-
cation of this program has
some serious difficulties.
The first of these is that the
government apparently does
not know how much it costs
to go to university. A
student is allowed up to $70
per week for room and
board. This figure is only
$40 dollars if he lives at
home. These amounts, in
many cases, are simply not
realistic. If the landlord
says it is not enough or the
parents want more, the
student is left helpless.

How many students could
get away with spending a
maximum of seven dollars to
cover transportation costs
for a whole week? This is
what the government says it
costs.

One thing that the govern-
ment does know the exact
cost of is tuition. Tuition
cost. is immedeately ac-
counted for by the govern-
ment. There is no problem
getting money to cover the
extra cost of: tuition in-
creases. This is why tuition
does not usually affect the
accessability of education.
The student’s real problem
lies in getting money to
cover cost of living.

Another problem with the
program is that the ceiling
for aid is set at $3500 per
year. Take the case of a
single parent
some kids and trying to go to
school. She applies for aid
and the government calcu-
lates how much she needs to
go to school and support her
family. These calculations
are done with the stingy

just \

supporting

figures of the government's
own device yet they still add
up to $4500. She’s out of
luck. Even though the
system admits that she
needs $4500 it will only give
her $3500. She might as
well forget any ideas about
bettering herself.

' In this part of the total

problem, tuition prices can
play a part. If the $4500
figure includes a $1500
tuition fee, then this fee is
largely responsible for
making this school out of
reach for this student. If the
tuition was $500 then the
students expenses would be
within the $3500 range and
she could then afford to go
to the school.

Still another fault in the
system is in the amount of
money the student is
expected to save during the
summer or period before he
attends school. A student is
expected to save $50 each
week. In a four month
summer he is supposed to
have saved $800. If he has
not, the government pre-
sumes it was because he was
lazy or wasteful and asses-
ses his costs as if he had

————EE
Whata
wonderful idea,
education
for everyone.

earned the full $800.

For example, if the govern-
ment estimates a student’s
educational costs at $2800,
they will assume he has
saved $800 and will pay him
$2000. If the student has
only managed to save $500
then he has only $2500 to
cover $2800 worth of ex-
penses. He is ten steps back
before he even gets started.
People who are torced to
live on welfare are also
expected to save, something
that is impossible to do
while on welfare. For these
people, those who perhaps
need school more than any-
one else since they desper-
ately need job .skills, an
education is a silly. pipe-
dream, way out or their

“®you have been

reach.

Over-estimating how much
an individual or his parents
can contribute toward edu-
cational expenses is a

common problem with

student aid. Summer
savings is not the only area
in question. Parents are
expected to contribute a
specified amount depending
on their income. If Dad
says,‘‘Your grown up now,
you can pay your own way
through school now,’’ then
tough luck kid. You are
assumed to have parental
support even if you don’t.

Another problem related to
this is the classification of a
student as dependant (on
parents) or independant. A
dependant person is expect-
ed to recieve support from
his parents. But in order to
be classified as independant
one must fall into one of
these categories:
in post
secondary school for four
years.

*you have been in the full
time work force for two
periods of 12 consecutive
months.
*you have been in post
secondary school three years
and the work force one
period of 12 consecutive
months.
®you are married , divorced,
separated, widowed, a sin-
gle parent or have a long
standing common law rela-
tionship.
*you have no parents due to
death or dissappearance.
Any such set of rigid regula-
tions is bound to have flaws,
as this one does. It is
amazing how seemingly
independant persons can fail
to meet these restrictions
and therefore require sup-
port from their parents.
Fortunately there is an
unofficial rule that a person
over 25 is automaticly con-
sidered independant. Other-
wise, 40 year old welfare
recipients who can’t hold a
full time job for the required
period would have to get
support from their pension-
ed parents.
There is another problem
with the student aid
program. It gives no
rewards to persons who
work a little harder. If a
student works hard and
frugally saves $1500 during
the summer, the extra
savings are deducted from
the award the government

Financial aid - problems !

gives him. The same
happens with scholarships.
Students have ablolutely no
incentive to earn more than
the $800 expected of them.
The government pays them
only enough to meet the
living standard they have set
for a student. Now this
seems fair if you agree that
a rich person should not
have an advantage in educa-
tion just because he has
more money. The problem
however is that the standard
of living the government
sets is often near or below
the poverty line. Unless
students have enough of
their own money to com-
pletely afford to pay their
own way, they must live at
these sub-poverty levels.
The government is saying in
effect, ‘‘Unless you have the
money to pay your own way,
you have to live in poverty if
you want to go to school.’’
Tuition fees are also a
factor here. As the fees
rise, more and more stu-
dents turn to financial aid
because they can no longer
afford an education out of
their own pocket. As soon
as this happens they are
forced to live at the govern-
ment’s standards, near
poverty. Only the wealthy
can escape this religation.
This is by no means an
exhaustive list of the prob-
lems riddling the financial
aid program, but it gives an
insight into its various bugs.
Unfortunately, the financial
aid program will remain in
its same archaic form next
year, though the year fol-
lowing, 82 - 83, there is a
possibility that with a little
push from our _ student
organizations, a new, more
reasonable program will be
implimented.
Currently there is a petition
being, circulated by the
Student Society calling for a
stop to proposed tuition
increases. By all mens, sign
the petition. Tuition in-
creases do affect students,
int ways explained above.
Besides, I would sign any-
thing that would keep any
price down. The price of
food for instance. I do not
like paying more for my food
every week. But when you
sign this petition, remember
where the real problem lies,
remember that the only way
to insure equal epportunity
education is to modernize
the financial aid program.

 

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